Crocker Farm Parent Guardian Organization: Supporting our children, teachers, and the Crocker Farm community through family events & activities, and through fundraising for field trips, classroom mini-grants, and more.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

At last night's joint School Committee meeting, the School Committee members voted to explore creating a policy regarding life-threatening food allergies, and referred this topic to the policy subcommittee for further discussion and action. Any policy on this topic that is prepared by the policy subcommittee needs to come back to the full School Committee for a vote before it can be adopted.

The policy subcommittee will meet on this topic today, Wed, 1/29, 5 pm on this topic. The meeting will be held at the regional middle school in the professional development center. The meeting is open to the public.

The current nut ban restrictions are considered guidelines (not policy). These guidelines and restrictions remain in place as is in all the district's school unless/until the School Committee approves a life-threatening food allergy policy that would support different guidelines and restrictions.

Here is a link to the school district's Allergy Aware Schools web page and guidelines (http://www.arps.org/district_info/services/health_information/allergy_aware_schools/). Here is a link to the policy subcommittee meeting notice for tonight.

Monday, January 27, 2014

CROCKER
FARM MURAL PROJECT

Please Join us January 29th 6:30-7:30

Dear Crocker Farm Community:

We are very
excited to announce that this year we have a very talented and enthusiastic
guest artist, Joshua Winer, coming to work with all of the students at Crocker
Farm School from April 1-17, 2014!All
students and teachers will be involved in the process of planning and creating
a beautiful mosaic that will pictorially tell some of the story of Crocker Farm
School and the land on which it rests.Parents
will also be offered opportunities to work on the mural with their children
during several after school and evening sessions. Come learn more about
Joshua’s work directly from him.

Meet in the
Crocker Farm Library, January 29 2014, from 6:30-7:30.Please arrive on time.Joshua will share about the work that he does
and parents will be able to ask questions about the process, what their
children will experience and how he will involve families as well.If you have any questions about this parent
meeting, please call Laura Ginsberg-Peltz, Mural Project Representative working
alongside Justyne Ogdahl, PGO President.Laura can be reached at 401-288-2787 or oceanlaura@gmail.com.

Sincerely

Crocker
Farm PGO

From Joshua Winer:

I'm Joshua Winer, an artist who specializes in working with schools and
communities to create works of mosaic art. I'm passionate about sharing the
experience of collaborative art making. I've worked with many different
communities to create mosaic murals, in my hometown of Boston, in regional
cities and towns, and across the United States. The mosaic art form is ideal
for community art. Creating a large mosaic is the coming together of many
hands, minds, talents and spirits. There is so much satisfaction and joy in
sharing this process!

I studied painting at Yale as a college student, then studied
architecture at Harvard for graduate studies. I worked as an architect for
about 10 years, all the while creating large painted murals. In 1991 I started
working as a full-time artist and teacher. My first large mosaic, commissioned
by The Meadowbrook School of Weston MA, was a 'Tree of Life' for the outside
wall of the school's parking circle. With this project, I experienced for the
first time the amazing value that the community mosaic process provides as a
way of creating hands-on public art. This was a powerful formative experience
for the mosaic work I do now.

I work with about five to ten schools and community
groups per year, specifically on group mosaic murals. This daily work allows me
fulfill my love of working on art closely with people, being a guide, a
teacher, a partner and a friend. Every new community offers me a professional
and personal adventure as we share a wonderful, focused experience creating
art.

Please consider joining Town Meeting. Amherst needs more parent voices (and votes) to help set our town's direction. Town Meeting passes all our town's budgets - including the library and schools. The commitment is just a handful of
evenings per year. It's a great way to learn what's going on in town, serve with your neighbors, as well as great public service. The deadline for getting your name on the ballot as a candidate for Town Meeting is Tuesday, February 4 at 5:00pm. Sign up in the Town Clerk's office in Town Hall. You must be a registered voter in the Town of Amherst. All it takes is one signature.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

At Crocker Farm, this evening's parent meeting with mural artist Joshua Winer and this afternoon's chess club session have both been canceled because of the weather.

-------------------------------------

Notice from the ARPS district offices: On behalf of the Superintendent of Schools, this is to notify you that all afterschool activities and programs and all evening events for the Amherst, Pelham and Regional Schools are canceled due to the predicted winter storm. This includes the elementary afterschool care programs as well as the Amherst School Committee meeting.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

CROCKER FARM MURAL PROJECT

Please Join us January 21st 6:30-7:30

From the PGO:

We are very excited to announce that this year we have
a very talented and enthusiastic guest artist, Joshua Winer, coming to work
with all of the students at Crocker Farm School from April 1-17, 2014! All students and teachers will be involved in
the process of planning and creating a beautiful mosaic that will pictorially
tell some of the story of Crocker Farm School and the land on which it
rests. Parents will also be offered
opportunities to work on the mural with their children during several after
school and evening sessions. Come learn more about Joshua’s work directly from
him.

Meet in the Crocker Farm Cafeteria, January 21, 2014,
from 6:30-7:30. Please arrive on
time. Joshua will share about the work
that he does and parents will be able to
ask questions about the process, what their children will experience and how he
will involve families as well. If you
have any questions about this parent meeting, please call Laura Ginsberg-Peltz,
Mural Project Representative working alongside Justyne Ogdahl, PGO President. Laura can be reached at 401-288-2787 or oceanlaura@gmail.com.

From Joshua Winer:

I'm Joshua Winer, an
artist who specializes in working with schools and communities to create works
of mosaic art. I'm passionate about sharing the experience of collaborative art
making. I've worked with many different communities to create mosaic murals, in
my hometown of Boston, in regional cities and towns, and across the United
States. The mosaic art form is ideal for community art. Creating a large mosaic
is the coming together of many hands, minds, talents and spirits. There is so
much satisfaction and joy in sharing this process!

I studied painting at
Yale as a college student, then studied architecture at Harvard for graduate
studies. I worked as an architect for about 10 years, all the while creating
large painted murals. In 1991 I started working as a full-time artist and
teacher. My first large mosaic, commissioned by The Meadowbrook School of
Weston MA, was a 'Tree of Life' for the outside wall of the school's parking
circle. With this project, I experienced for the first time the amazing value
that the community mosaic process provides as a way of creating hands-on public
art. This was a powerful formative experience for the mosaic work I do now.

I work with about five to
ten schools and community groups per year, specifically on group mosaic murals.
This daily work allows me fulfill my love of working on art closely with
people, being a guide, a teacher, a partner and a friend. Every new community
offers me a professional and personal adventure as we share a wonderful,
focused experience creating art.

Amherst, MA – Parent, guardians, and grandparents
are invited to attend a presentation that will help them make the most
of those unexpected moments where the right words can help kids of all
ages learn important things about what’s happening
just then. Join us on Thursday evening, January 16, 2014 at 7 pm
in the Woodbury Room for this program, presented by Dr. Connie Hebert
especially for parents – or anyone else who takes care of kids!

The Teachable Minute is the golden
opportunity to teach kids something, anywhere, on the spot. It can
happen at any time, in everyday places we all go. It can happen in a
car, at the mall, around the kitchen table, at the post office,
in the yard, on a plane, in an elevator, at the beach - anywhere you
can imagine. All kids are naturally curious – teachable minutes are a
perfect way to give them our attention.

Dr. Connie Hebert says, “Everywhere we go, we can
find kids who are watching adults who are engaging with devices at all
hours of the day and night. This concern raised an important question
for me: How can we strike a balance between
engaging with devices and interacting with kids? My goal is to help
parents become experts at catching
the teachable minute so they can interact with kids of all ages, anytime and anywhere.”

Dr. Connie Hebert has served a decade as senior
national consultant for Staff Development for Educators (SDE) and 3
years as a Treasures™ reading program consultant and national speaker
for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. She has her doctorate
in Educational Leadership and masters in Reading Education. Field
experience includes director of reading (K-12), elementary classroom
teacher in 7 school districts, Reading Recovery specialist in 3
districts, and instructor for 3 Massachusetts colleges.

Free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Janet Ryan at 413/259-3223.

The Northampton Arts Council will once again present YouthFilm,
a week-long festival of film and video created by local youth and
screened at the famous Academy of Music Theatre in downtown
Northampton.

The festival accepts film and video entries from throughout the region by young people from 5–18 years old.

This year YouthFilm 2014 will be presented at the Academy of
Music Theatre. The participants are able to see their films on the
Academy of Music’s large screen in a theater setting before each of the
KidsBestFest feature films from Monday February 17th through Friday
February 21st. The YouthFilm screenings will begin at 1 PM on each of
those days with the KidsBestFest feature beginning at 2 PM.

Help us spread the word to young film and video makers, teachers who
work with film and video, and organizations that can let young people
know about this opportunity.

The festival has been very successful over the last five years and is a
great opportunity for aspiring young visual artists to present their
work on the largest screen in the Valley.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Proceeds go primarily to help the Lions Club raise money for a DaVinci sight machine for visually impaired students. A portion of the proceeds will also go to the Crocker Farm PGO for activities to support teachers, students, and the Crocker Farm community.